Dana And Kevin In Kindred

As a Jewish person, I feel a certain connection to other Jewish people in the world, past and present. This isn’t because I see them as my fellow “chosen people”, but rather because I know I shared lived experiences with them: celebrating the same holidays, eating the same food, learning from the same texts. In addition, I know we hold many of the same things in high esteem, such as justice and community. In the same way, the “kindred spirits” in Kindred are alike, not necessarily by blood, but by their shared experiences and values. Dana and Kevin are kindred. At their first meeting, despite their differences in race and age, they immediately bond over the fact that they are both writers. Not only that, but they have also struggled financially …show more content…
These similarities compel Dana and Kevin to get to know each other better. Dana first sees Kevin as a kindred spirit upon learning of his refusal to give up despite undesirable circumstances. He “[had] gone on writing – unreasonably, against the advice of saner people”. He was like me – a kindred spirit crazy enough to keep on trying” (Butler 57). It is Kevin’s initial interest in Dana’s writing career that brought the two of them together, but it is ultimately this shared perseverance that defines their relationship throughout the book, as they must stay true to themselves and to each other in their journeys to the past. Dana and Alice are also kindred spirits. Unlike Dana and Kevin, Dana and Alice are physically similar to each other. They are both young black women, whose looks are often compared, which is unsurprising considering they are directly related. This physical connection, however, is not what makes them so alike; it is their shared experiences that do. Both Dana and Alice are loved by Rufus, albeit in different …show more content…
When Dana refuses to help Rufus rape Alice, an enraged Rufus tells Dana: “‘You think you’re white!...You don’t know your place any better than a wild animal’” (Butler 164). After everything Dana has done for Rufus throughout their relationship, Rufus still views himself as superior to her, going so far as to call her subhuman. Even though he knows Dana on a deeply personal level, they are never equals; Rufus always has control over Dana because of his role as slavemaster and Dana’s as a slave. Rufus proves this to Dana when he punishes her by sending her to fieldwork. In the recent past, black Americans have been wrongfully viewed as criminals. Dana tells Kevin about an instance where her mother was racially profiled in a Los Angeles suburb: “‘Three people called the police on her while she was waiting.Suspicious character. Five-three, she was a snob. About a hundred pounds of weight. Real dangerous’” (111). Dana sarcastically comments on the fact that her mother was a small, unassuming woman, yet was still wrongfully seen as a threat by white people. Solely because of her race, Dana’s mother was believed to be not only out of place in the neighborhood, but to be committing some sort of crime. It is not surprising, therefore, that even members of the black community would see their skin color as problematic. When Dana tells her aunt about her marriage to Kevin,

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